


Release

by pridecookies



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Blood Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Blood Mages, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, F/M, Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Post-Break Up, he just loves that fucking elf so much i cannot even, i want to die, they are just so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27735187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pridecookies/pseuds/pridecookies
Summary: Malcolm Hawke deals with heartache the only way he knows how: terribly.
Relationships: Fenris/Male Hawke, Hawke/Isabela (Dragon Age)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

The Hanged Man was crowded, stuffy, and provided an excellent array of the most intoxicating sins. Isabela was poised in her usual station, dutifully providing herself as the art in an otherwise dreary tavern. There was a man fawning over her, also usually how the scene was set, but she was barely listening. Malcolm Hawke walked in already so close to being intoxicated that it was a miracle he was standing upright or even properly. Though, he did have experience with forcing a reasonable gait when his body was begging him to sit down, fall asleep, maybe die. With his usual charm and dexterity, he leaned on the bar next to her, head cocked and grin cockier. Isabela, her drink halfway to her lips, gave him a knowing smile.

“Well, look at you,” she purred, “Here for the poetry presentation?”

“Absolutely,” he winked, “I wrote something for you. Very erotic. Andraste preserve you, you’re going to need her when I’m done.”

“Is that so.”

“But I’m dreadfully shy, I can’t perform in front of people.”

“You had little trouble performing in front of people at that special little party of ours a couple months back,” the rogue teased.

Malcolm smirked and looked around the tavern, “I don’t think it’s best to repeat that _here_ , love. Though I doubt anyone would object to your—“ he looked at her lips, “—artistic skill.”

“Pity,” Isabela teased with mock disappointment, gesturing for the bartender to bring her another drink, “I suppose I can share my work elsewhere.” 

“Consider me a fan.”

She eyed him a moment, her lips curling into a smile reserved for conversations in which both parties have seen the other in intimate and compromising positions. Isabela shifted her weight and leaned on the bar herself, mirroring him. His expression was as easy to read as a smutty book and just as carnal. Isabela narrowed her eyes but her smile was still a beaming, radiant beacon in a very dank harbor. Malcolm took a step closer to her, erecting a single finger and running it up her arm slowly, watching her carefully as her skin responded. 

“What are you doing tonight?” he murmured.

“Depends,” Isabela breathed, her body affected by his touch but doing well to pretend otherwise, “I haven’t picked the lucky soul yet.”

“Come over.”

She lifted a dark brown brow and scoffed, “You’re kidding.”

“I have some very strong rope and a very weak tolerance for this little—what even _is_ this?” he asked and played with the hem of the minimal white fabric she wore and insisted was a dress. He very purposefully moved it aside to visually access what was underneath, not that it was anything he hadn’t seen a dozen times.

“It’s a tunic, you fool.”

“It would look better on my floor.”

“Could you even wait until we got to your estate? You’re rather impatient.”

“Excellent point, our little nook behind the barrels out back works.”

“As much as I delight in fucking you in alleyways, we haven’t done that in months.”

“Shame. Why did we stop?”

“Because you were playing tutor and pining like a schoolgirl with lanky boy.”

“Ah.”

“Which I assume is over, considering your aggressive thrusting in my direction.”

“Clever girl. How about that alleyway?”

“Malcolm,” Isabela sighed, “Sweet, stupid Malcolm. What happened with Fenris?”

“That really is the last thing I want to talk about at the moment.”

“In that case you definitely should.”

The mage darkened and leaned against the bar with his back, running a hand in his hair and shaking his head. He looked out at the tavern for a moment. It was a desperate sea of men too drunk to do anything useful and too useless to do anything but drink. It shouldn’t be so comforting to him but it was. Something about the lack of personal expectations mingled with the hopes of a pleasurable night felt simple and easy, like slipping into clean sheets with bare skin and someone whose name you’ve long forgotten. She was watching him with genuine concern.

“I don’t know, Isa,” he sighed and motioned to the bartender to bring him a drink, feigning an imaginary glass to his lips in gesture. “I have no idea.”

Isabela placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in, laying her cheek on it affectionately. “Go on then,” she encouraged. 

He pinched the bridge between his eyes and closed them, breathing in for a moment. It was uncharacteristic for him to be so affected. He knew it and he hated it. _Maker_ , did he hate it. The bartender brought him a drink and he turned and leaned on the bar, letting his head hang over his neck for a moment. Then, he sat up, downed the drink in one swift motion, and set it back on the bartop with more force than was necessary. 

“I woke up in the middle of the night and he was standing there, like a specter in a storm, illuminated by the fireplace. Dressed, ready to leave, _waiting_ to leave. He already knew. I was sleeping and he was awake and he knew what he was going to do and he _waited_ so he could look me in the eyes and tell me that it was a mistake. Brave bastard,” he chuckled darkly. Isabela gestured to the bartender to bring another drink.

“Go on,” she prodded, “or it’ll force its way out in a less agreeable way.”

“You’re asking me to talk about my feelings when I _could_ be pressing you against the back wall of an alley, heightening your every sensation with unique arcane techniques. I can’t think of anything less agreeable.”

Isabela shook her head, “Your methods aren’t unique, sweet thing. Anders taught you that little trick. Thank the Maker he did though.”

“I don’t think the Maker ever intended His precious gift to be used that way.”

“Easy there, Sebastian.”

Malcolm snorted and wrapped a hand around her waist, which Isabela immediately removed and gave him a probing look. The mage sighed and stared into his cup.

“He left me, Isabela. What more is there to say?”

“Says the man who never shuts up.”

“You want me to hurt over this.”

“I want you to be whatever it is that you are.”

“Aroused.”

“Funny boy.”

“Just come over.”

“If I was sure that you _truly_ were fine, then I would have little problem taking you home and christening every corner of your bedroom until we both couldn’t walk. But I’m not. So keep your pants on.”

“ _You_ certainly didn’t,” he looked down at her bare legs.

“It’s a _tunic_.”

“It’s an obstacle.”

“Malcolm.”

He glanced at her a moment, attempting to decipher how likely it was that she would relent and he could play his little game and find himself in a bed, her bed, his bed, any bed, to forget for a while. Knowing Isabela, she would win. 

“You’re being very—” he narrowed his eyes, “— _t_ _ender_ with me right now. I thought we agreed we weren’t bringing feelings into this and now look what you’ve done.”

Isabela sighed, “You’re so pretty and so dense that you’re practically gemstone,” she shook her head, “It’s sex I want. Glorious, aggressive, unattached sex. Anything other than having a bit of fun? _Not_ what I want. This?” she gestured to his entire person, “This isn’t about having fun, this about distraction. Don’t make me a proxy for someone else. You won’t find release between my legs.”

“Maybe, but you certainly would if you let me.”

“Probably more than once,” Isabela chuckled and looped her arm in his, “Walk with me, then. We’ll take you home.” The mage lifted a single eyebrow and she shoved him, “Just walk.”


	2. Chapter 2

Malcolm was now properly drunk but he was soberly aware of it. The streets of Kirkwall were lit with the burning flame of industry, gold light against grey smoke. Lingering firelight in the streets flicked across Isabela’s features, her eyes filled with their refined chaos, but tinged with a concern she did well to veil. Per their usual casual intimacy, they made terrible jokes about nobility and patrons in the Hanged Man and theorized on  _ just _ how bad a boy Sebastian Vael had been, his arm wrapped around her waist and her arm wrapped around his. When they reached the estate, Isabela detached herself from him and crossed her arms, gesturing to the door with her head like a patient mother. 

“In you go,” she ordered. 

Malcolm lifted his brows in feigned surprise, “Alone?”

“If you and your desperation can even fit.”

The mage clicked his tongue, staring at the door and looked back at her with a grin that could only be described as wolfish. Isabela was leaning with her back against the external entryway wall, her hands behind her, eyeing him with warning amusement.

“Isabela,” he purred, walking toward her and taking a very bold step until his face was inches from hers, “You’re being rather boring.”

“Maybe,” she clipped, “But I am also being a friend.”

“I don’t need a friend. I need to make you come with my mouth.”

“Oh, you’re rather good, you aren’t you?” she smiled mischievously.

“I can make you come without touching you at all,” he promised, lifting a hand and letting magical current flow out of his palm.

“Still a no, Malcolm.”

He closed it and looked at her, strategizing. He leaned further in, his fingers tracing the line of her arm and resting very purposefully on her exposed thigh, gripping it. Isabela was starting to breathe more erratically and the sound emboldened him further. Perhaps he would win this game. His mouth lingered above her ear, brushing against it and making her shiver. 

“Isabela,” he coaxed, whispering her name like a tender prayer, “I’m  _ fine _ . Don’t worry so much. I want to smell your desire in my sheets for a week. I want to hear the way you moan underneath me in my head like a fucking song I can’t shake. Let your sex be my salvation. Please.” She pressed against him and he could feel her heartbeat quicken and her pulse race as he kissed her neck. They fell into familiar rhythm, his hands grasping at her with starving desperation and her body reciprocating in its obedient need to be touched by him. Malcolm’s mouth lingered with minimal distance from hers, grazing her lips with fantastic discipline and he whispered against them, “Come inside. Come to bed. Let me ruin you.”

Isabela smiled suggestively and almost closed the distance between her mouth and his before she stopped and rejected him with a simple, “No.”

The charm was swept away in the current of her refusal and his expression shifted immediately. It was like watching a child be denied a new toy. Malcolm’s eye twitched and he took in a breath and immediately stepped away from her, punching a wall and pacing around the courtyard, wincing and nursing his now sore hand. She watched, looking almost bored and crossed her arms. 

“Are you quite done? You’re acting like a petulant child.”

He rubbed his jaw, breathing erratically, and shook his head, “What do you want from me then? Hmm? You want me to talk about it? Is that what you want?”

“If I cared about what I wanted right now we wouldn’t have made it farther than a well concealed street corner. It’s not about what I want, it’s about what you need.”

“ _ What I need _ ,” he threw his hands in the air, his voice raised and ragged, “is to flood my brain with something other than flashes of white hair and the way the lyrium in his skin responded to the magic in my blood. I need to smell someone else in the room. You. A stranger. Anyone. I can’t escape it, he’s hanging in the air like smoke in Lowtown. I need to stop thinking about every little  _ fucking _ thing I said and agonizing over what I could have done so wrong. I need to close my eyes and not see the outline of his  _ ridiculous _ , stupid armor as he  _ walked away from me _ . I can’t think about how undone he was. I can’t think about how he held on so tightly when I held him that I thought I would bruise. I can’t think about how much I want to burn that  _ fucking bed _ because looking at how empty it is feels like a blade shoved into my skull.  _ I need to feel good. _ ” He stopped talking, his chest moving up and down with the violence of his labored breathing, “And you _ ,  _ Isa… _ feel so good. _ I need to be inside someone who isn’t him and that doesn’t expect anything from me and I need it now.”

He stared at her after the courtyard fell silent, the echoes of his exhaustive dialogue still lingering in the air. Isabela was looking at him with a soft expression, compassionate and kind. Malcolm frustratively ran his hands through his hair but his breathing didn’t slow. It was coming out in quick bursts, useless to his lungs. 

“Well, shit,” he sputtered and she approached him, “I can’t breathe.”

“It’s alright,” she coaxed.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he coughed, trying to force air into his lungs. Every breath felt like it was sharper and shallower than the one before and he was starting to feel something like what he felt when he watched Bethany slip away from him, her brown eyes losing their light. It was fear. 

“Malcolm,” Isabela murmured, “Take a deep breath.  _ Slowly _ .”

It hadn’t happened since he was a child but he could feel it, the rush of something sinister and terrifyingly uncontrollable. Arcane fire and light and frost pooling beneath the surface of his skin and begging for release, a climax long denied, forced to edge to its limit. The Chant echoed in his ears but he couldn’t stop shaking.  _ Magic exists to serve man, not to rule over him.  _ He took in a breath and focused his energy again, closing his eyes, breathing in and out and in and out. He allowed the incoming air to slow the storm that was threatening to rip him apart and leave him undone in the middle of Hightown. He stilled and opened his eyes. 

Isabela was standing in front of him, her hands on either side of his face. 

“There you are,” she breathed, “That’s a new one for you. Oh,  _ shit _ .”

“It’s not actually,” he coughed and felt the pathways of his nose begin to close. He took his hand and rubbed his face. Looking back at his fingers, he saw the glistening sheen of crimson that was all too familiar to him now. He leaned his head back to stifle the flow of blood. “Used to happen all the time. My father helped me control myself better. I was probably about eight or nine last time.”

“Hmm,” she said and studied his face a moment. “Here,” she murmured and took the blue fabric she usually wore around her waist and pressed it to his nose, “Look at me, you fool.” 

Malcolm bent his head forward and allowed her to apply pressure. 

“You’re a mess, you know,” she soothed.

“Unfortunately, so is your little sash.”

“I have others.”

Isabela’s amber eyes were laiden with the warmth of fond memory. “When Carver joined the Templars, you asked me to come over. It was the first time I stayed. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Malcolm murmured, looking at her with more affection in a single gaze than he offered most in a lifetime. She continued applying pressure, her eyes focused on the application and his eyes focused on her. 

“I woke up in the middle of the night and there you were, hair a complete mess, just your house pants, sitting cross legged in front of the fireplace with a beat up lute cradled in your lap. You looked at me and told me I looked good in your sheets.”

“You do.”

She chuckled, “I could tell you’d been crying, you know. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think you wanted me to. But I could tell.”

Malcolm set a hand on hers and closed his eyes, brow furrowed and expression troubled. He breathed in the cold of the night through his mouth, the faint copper tinge of blood lingering in the back of his throat, the scent of her hair. Tastes and smells he knew well and antidotes to poisons he drank often.

He looked at the floor, his gaze removed from hers and spoke quietly. “I was thinking about what my father would have said to me, if he knew what Carver had done. It was my fault that he joined the Order, I pushed him into their arms.”

Isabela removed the sash and checked his nose. His gaze didn’t move from her face. Her expression was thoughtful, gentle like the sea lapping on white shore. 

“Carver’s reasons were Carvers,” she stated as a fact, “You have ruined plenty of lives but not that one. I remember how upset you were though. I sat next to you on the floor and you played me a song.”

Malcolm chuckled, “I was in a romantic mood.”

“It was good. Simple. Just little things about my name.”

“You deserve good things, Isa,” Malcolm said softly. 

She smiled, “Why am I friends with you then?”

“You deserve good things but you like bad things,” he smirked. 

“Oh, that’s right,” she snorted.

“And you do look good in white,” he murmured and kissed her hand with a gentle motion, giving it a squeeze when he released it, “but happiness looks best on you.” 

Isabela smiled, “If that’s the case, I should avoid you,” she teased and took a step back from him, setting her hands on her hips and gesturing to the door with her head, “You’re okay. Go inside.”

Malcolm looked at the door and back at her, “Can you just—“ he sighed, “—stay. I need new memories in that room.” He shifted in his stance, a rare moment of insecurity. “I don’t like the memories I have now.”

Isabela sighed, “If I stay, you’ll wear me down and we’ll fuck and all I will have done is make it worse. Trust me, Malcolm. As your friend. Go to bed. Without me.”

He walked to the door and ran a hand over the family crest as it sat atop the frame, aware of his every mistake and shadowing his every achievement. 

“It’s not that I don’t know pain,” he sighed, “I do. I’ve been more intimate with pain than anything else, no one knows the inches of me like her.” He glanced back at her with a heaviness in his eyes, the blue somehow seemed to dim in its vibrancy until it was almost grey, overshadowed by the weight of what was inside them. “Not even you.”

Isabela watched a moment, holding her own arms and silently expressing encouragement, even from a distance. Malcolm’s hand folded into a fist and he rested it against the crest, leaning into it. He was exhausted. 

“Malcolm,” Isabela said softly, “Go to bed.”


	3. Chapter 3

When Isabela left, he lingered inside the entryway and pressed his forehead against the front door. The house was quiet and still and desperately empty. Everyone was asleep and no one was waiting for him when he walked in. He turned and looked out into the expanse of what he had so painstakingly built for a family that didn’t even live in it. If you cut open his chest and looked at the organs and peeled out his heart then his family would be carved on the surface. But it didn’t really matter anymore. They weren’t there. 

He walked upstairs and stopped on the left hallway that led to his mother’s bedroom. As quietly as possible, he opened the door and looked inside. The shape of her was illuminated through the cool moonlight and he could hear the cadence of her breathing. It was the first sound he ever heard. Malcolm closed the door and lingered a moment, meditating on the image. It never got easier and it always felt wrong to see her sleeping alone. Leandra shouldn’t never have had to be alone. 

Somehow, he felt that was his fault too. Somehow. 

Malcolm walked back to his bedroom and paused at its entrance. The dark wooden door was closed and he knew what was behind it. If he opened the door, then the memories that lingered on every wall and every part of his bed pressed against it in waiting like spirits against the Veil would seep out and spill over him and there would be no safe harbor.

_ Talk to me, Fenris. _

With a hand poised over the doorknob, he took a deep breath in anticipation. 

_ I cannot make you understand. _

His palm closed over the brass and it felt how cold it was.

_ Why won’t you even try? _

Slowly, he turned it and heard the sound of the lock as it slid out of place. 

_ I... can’t, Hawke. _

He didn’t remember that lock ever being so loud. 

_ Fuck it. _

Malcolm pulled his hand away and sprinted down the stairs toward the front door.


	4. Chapter 4

Caged animals probably had more peace than he did. Pacing back and forth in front of Fenris’ mansion, Malcolm rubbed the skin around his eyes in a nervous habit, mumbling to himself. It wasn’t a long walk but it felt like running from Lothering. Urgent and terrifying and surreal. He walked up to the door, lifted a fist against it, backed away, paced again. This was a bad idea and he knew it but dammit, if he didn’t revel in the promises of bad ideas. There was a sound of an opening latch that interrupted his quiet panic and as it opened, he felt like his heart was being compressed by the weight of every burden he had borne since stepping foot into Kirkwall. 

Fenris looked confused but there was a moment that danced across his features that was more than mere recognition. There was joy there, if only a glimmer, pieces of light flickering from a flame. Malcolm stood by the door, his breathing ragged and his expression kinder than probably would be sensical to the elf in that moment. 

“Hi,” he breathed. 

“Hi,” Fenris said softly. 

Malcom looked at him and pressed his fingers into his hair, tangling them in the cold dark brown and scratching his scalp aggressively as if that would somehow stimulate his brain enough to be understandable. He stopped and turned to the elf and lifted his arms in surrender.

“Did I make you happy?” he asked, the words tumbling breathlessly from his lips like they had been pressing against the other side of his mouth for years.

“Why—”

“ _ Did I make you happy _ ?”

Fenris looked back inside at the empty mansion and at the mage again, standing alone in the expanse of Hightown’s courtyard. He was trapped by nothing more than empty space, but he was trapped nonetheless. He eyed the mage warily.

“I am unsure how to answer that.”

“Usually with a yes or a no. You make me happy. I want to know if I made you happy. Sometimes I wonder if you even know how to be happy at all.”

Fenris sighed, his frame exhausted. 

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” Malcolm breathed, nodding in encouragement, his eyes wide and full of possibility, “We’re getting somewhere. This is good.”

The elf’s large eyes twitched, “You are too drunk for this conversation.”

“Fenris, I have to be drunk for this conversation or I won’t survive it.”

“You have never been that fragile.”

“ _ You’re right, I haven’t _ ,” the mage said pointedly, taking a step toward him with an emphatic “That should tell you how  _ important you— _ ” he voice broke and he looked away, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing in. “When Bethany died, I had no idea how to look it in the face. Looked everywhere else first. Grief found me anyway, crafty bastard that it is. It’s like sand, gets in every little corner and just when you think it’s gone, you find pieces in your boots years later,” he sighed and looked at the elf, “I guess love is like that too. I should have known it would feel like grief.  _ Maker _ ,” he laughed darkly, “I should have known. You’re a bad hangover and I keep pouring another glass of the same fucking wine and hoping I can take it. Telling myself I can.” He stopped a moment and rubbed his eyes, his expression defeated. “I don’t think I can, Fenris. It’s too hard. I can’t make room for more pain, it shadows every inch of me.”

Fenris stepped further back against the door, partially hiding himself. The mention of that word that had so much potential caused him to appear to shrink in size. Fear and love are so often confused. The sensations are the same. The elf looked so small. Malcolm took a step closer, his palms pressed against the wall, leaning into it. Fenris didn’t move, he was controlled and steady and unflinching. But the elf couldn't hide the tumult in his expression any more than he could hide the lyrium branded on his skin. Heartache seemed to be a part of his makeup and it was so involved in him that nothing could untangle it. Malcolm couldn’t pry that trauma from his desperate grasp even if he used every ounce of strength he had. Fenris happily courted his trauma and he was incapable of infidelity.

The mage leaned in for a moment, his expression pleading. 

“Let me in, Fenris,” he breathed. He begged. Again. Shit, he found it so easy now. He took another step closer to him, preluding a kiss. But he knew it would be rejected and denied. He prayed it wouldn’t but he knew it would. “Please.”

The resounding echo of everything those words promised was not lost on either of them.  _ Let me in. Let me love the pieces of your past you can’t bear. Let me show you all the things magic has not spoiled in you. Let me show you an unshackled life. Let me in before that door closes and we don’t have a chance again. Let me in. Don’t make me be the one to walk away, I won’t come back.  _

_ Let me in. _

_ Let me in. _

_ Let me in. _

Fenris was guarded, aloof. He took a deep breath and posed a question they both knew the answer to in the most terrifying way. “Why are you here, Malcolm.”

It was phrased more like a statement, an assertion, perhaps a challenge. The mage looked at him for a moment and back down at his feet, studying them for some sort of semblance of sense on their surface, as if the perfect response could be found in the cracked dirt and leather. He looked back at Fenris. 

“Because I want my nights to taste like you,” he said after a moment. Fenris’ expression shifted and affection that was held captive behind it began to seep through. Malcolm threw up his hands in defeat, “And I want my mornings to smell like you.” He tried to control his breathing and failed, his lungs were too aggressively seeking air as if they had long been denied it. “And I want to help you. Maker, I want to help you so badly. And you won’t let me.”

The elf shifted a moment, his fists clenched for a brief second, and released. 

“I can’t,” he said quietly with that same finality as before.

Malcolm set his hands on his hips and shook his head. His answer was so brutally useless that it was almost comical. He smiled but the expression was not welcoming or friendly or kind. It was accusatory, if a smile could be. 

“That’s all you know isn’t it, Fenris,” he chuckled, a sound without joy, “What you  _ can’t _ do.” He held up his hand and allowed magic to pool in his palm, studying it with caged fingers, “And you’re so afraid of what I can _. _ ”

“That is not what this is about.”

“Isn’t it,” Malcolm clipped, closing his palm with a flourish, “You’re afraid of  _ me _ .”

“It is not that simple.”

The mage took a step toward him, his expression softened and pleading, “I would chop off my own fucking hands before—” he shook his head, his body manic as he gestured to himself erratically, “—I _would beg for the Brand before I hurt you_. Do you understand?”

Fenris took a deep breath and laid his hand on the door, leaning into it like it was holding his entire body upright, “It was a mistake, Malcolm. I said it before and it is still true. There is nothing more to explain. This is not about power. I just…can’t.”

Malcolm stood without moving and for once, without speaking. His throat felt like it was closing and there was a weight in his chest that appeared to be expanding so rapidly he would soon be unable to move let alone walk away. He was reminded of the Saarebas they had escorted to the beach, who could not comprehend his own freedom. He was in a cage inside himself. Freedom was so foreign to him that he lit his body on fire to escape its possibilities. Malcolm felt enslaved, weakened, bound. With one glance, the elf robbed him of his agency so completely that it would have been easier to light himself on fire.

“Maybe it isn’t about power,” he said distantly, looking out across the courtyard before returning his attention to Fenris with a pained expression, “but not even the Chantry has made me feel powerless like you.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes, “You like to bring mages into everything, don’t you?”

“And you don't?”

There it was. There was a proverbial axe hanging over Malcolm’s head and here it fell and severed any hope that he had been so desperately clinging to. It was never going to matter how tightly he gripped at Fenris or how willingly he shackled himself to his every need. His heart was caged in lyrium and beat to the cadence of the elf’s breathing when he slept beside him, but he was still his father’s son. Kirkwall was burning like the barn in Lothering and mages were screaming for salvation. The truth trickled in like water but he refused to drink it until he had to. Even so, it tasted too bitter to swallow easily. He choked on it. 

The elf mumbled under his breath, “ _Festis bei umo canavarum_.”

Looking up, the mage shook his head, “I don’t speak Tevene, Fenris. Just say it.”

“It means ‘you will be the death of me,’” the elf murmured, his tone defeated.

Malcolm looked back at him and his features fell into an altogether new despair. It did feel like that, a death. There was so much mourning packed tightly in the space between them it was almost concrete. Most of his life was wrapped up in the immediate need, the easily fulfillable desire. That was safe. That was easy. That was clean. Without repercussion, you could walk away. It was like slicing through bone with a cleaver, cut off with immediacy. Love was fractured, the bone splintered and shards of it lodged themselves inside the body and the shrapnel tore a thousand little cuts. You never walked the same even when it healed.

They looked at each other and mourned the death of every possible beautiful thing that they could have built. Fenris said nothing. He expressed nothing, not in words. But his eyes were veiled with grief. Or was it love? They were just so very similar. 

“I’m sorry,” was all he managed.

Malcolm took a deep breath, nodding slowly. It hurt, it felt sharp and it hurt.

“So am I,” he murmured and turned away. He took a few steps and then stopped and looked back at Fenris. Pain strangled his voice, stifling life like weeds in a garden. “I heard what you said,” he said softly, “about the Knight Commander. I didn’t want to. I wish I had been deaf so I didn’t have to. It would have been better if someone plunged knives into my ears. That’s how it felt, anyway. You said she was restoring order. You know what she’s done. You know how scared I am. The only reason I am standing here now is Meredith allows it, it benefits her. The second it doesn’t—” he stopped, swallowed, and looked at the floor. “Fear changes things but the accusation of being a mage in Kirkwall is a lethal one. You say I could be the death of you? She very well could be the death of me. And you support her. Think about that.”

With that, he turned and walked away. Fenris watched him go until he disappeared into the alleyways of the buildings of Hightown. 


	5. Chapter 5

Fenris closed the door behind him and pressed his back to it, facing the expanse of an empty mansion that wasn’t his. The walls and floors were decayed and decrepit and the air was dank. It was a grim place to hide. He closed his eyes and breathed in the shadow, letting the emptiness fill him. Absentmindedly, he reached into his pocket and clutched at a red piece of fabric, the color of the Hawke family. His fingers found purchase and he pulled it out, holding it with tense hands. Fenris slid down the door slowly and sat on the floor, pressing the red favor into his forehead, allowing himself a moment to wade deeper into the agony that he knew so well. He was silent in the stillness but inside he was screaming. 


	6. Chapter 6

Malcolm was no longer drunk on anything other than the acute desire to find a void and allow it to swallow him. But another drug lingered beneath the surface, a fury that burned brighter than the sparks that left his fingertips when he cast elemental magic. It was the same rage that prompted him to burn down his family’s barn in Lothering after his father died. It was the same rage that he felt when that man found him in a field when he was fourteen and threatened to give him to the Templars. It was the same rage that fueled him when he petrified that same man and rendered him immobile before he burned him alive. He didn’t need a spirit of Justice housed in his body, he was vengeful all on his own. 

The accusation of being a mage, the qunari called it. It was a blight upon Thedas, a curse of the Maker, a sickness to heal. But the burden he felt for his fellow mages in Kirkwall and all the work the resistance had done no longer felt like enough. The need for retribution was a fever he couldn’t sweat out. He wanted to see them freed but he wanted just as much to see reparations made by non-mages that saw suffering and closed their eyes. He wanted justice. He wanted atonement. He wanted their repentance. There were moments where he was afraid of his own fire, a flame too big for its hearth. It was overpowering.

He had buried it with Fenris, pushed it down, swallowed it, and choked on it. But he did it anyway. He ignored every outcry in his head of the thousands of mages that had been branded, executed, assaulted and reviled under the Chantry because it was such a dissonant sound, impossible to harmonize with the new melody that was springing inside him. That new melody was so promising, he couldn’t ignore it. It was Fenris’ laughter over a bad joke, the way his vocal inflections changed when he was happy, the sound of a page turning and hands clasped together underneath an old table when he taught him to read, the dissatisfied noise he made when he was annoyed. It was such a beautiful song. But it collided with the screams of the mages. 

And those screams ruined the song. 

The need for release crept back into his bones. He wanted to kick something, plunge his fist into the ground, break his fingers, scream. Overwhelming him was the aching desire to rip open his own chest and let the ravaging tumult out. Whatever it was that offered that release, screaming into nothing or fucking in an alley or releasing the violence of his heartbreak on someone else, something else, anything else, he _needed_ it. 

The Maker does have a sense of humor. 

“Well, would you look at that,” a voice said behind him, “Malcolm Hawke, alone in Lowtown. What are the chances?”

Malcolm closed his eyes. 

_Oh, yes. Maker._

There was another voice in his head now, the warm timbre of his father.

_You hold the ability to heal and destroy in your hands and in your head. Use it kindly._

Malcolm opened them and shook his head, casting aside that voice.

_I choose cruelty._

He turned around and there was Dougal, the dwarf that had threatened to extort him for profit. Dougal was standing in an open enclave, surrounded by companions. Grinning, cocky, and armed to the teeth, he stood waiting for the mage. With his short arms crossed and his bulbous eyes expectant, he painted a confident picture. Malcolm looked around the opening, taking inventory of how many there were, where they were, what they held. Roughly fourteen.

Malcolm sighed with a happy expectancy and walked into the opening in an arrogant stride, winking at a Carta member as he did. Addressing Dougal, he crossed his arms. 

“Dougal, I am so glad to see you. I would express it better with words but I am afraid it might sound too romantic for mixed company. Is that a new bandolier? You look nice today.”

“Shut up, Hawke. You rejected my offer at the estate. Looks like we are going to need to do this the hard way,” the dwarf shouted, “I’ll get the money you owe me if I have to tear your mansion apart brick by brick.”

Malcolm smirked, “Most of it is a combination of stone and cedar actually. But I suppose it would be hard for you to notice that walking in, you only see the bottom half.”

“I considered going after your mother, but I prefer the more direct approach.”

_Leandra._

The mage’s smirk widened into something more malignant.

_Now you’ve earned this._

He lifted his left hand, always covered in a strip of linen bandaging and he started to unravel it very slowly, enjoying the way the pressure released as he did so. 

“You know, Dougal,” he sighed, “I like to think I am a _reasonable_ man. I try to be sensible. But, there are moments where I give myself permission to unwind, be indulgent. I sleep in, I drink another glass of wine, I have exhaustive sex with strangers. Sometimes,” he glanced up and opened his now naked palm, “that indulgence looks a little different.” He had no staff but his emotions gave him a raw advantage that he intended to harness brilliantly. With a flourish, he pulled a small knife out of his pocket and poised it above his skin, his smile still terrifyingly baneful and directed at the dwarf. Dougal looked less confident now, his eyes going back and forth between Malcolm’s satisfied expression and the knife hanging over his palm. “Sometimes I indulge in a little anarchy.”

With that, he forced the blade into his flesh and blood spilled out and drifted into the air, coloring it with suspended crimson. It hung around him like a halo, a sacrament to his own craving for violence. He felt the lyrium in his blood strengthen every sense, every sensation and arcane power boiled beneath his fingers and released around him. Seven Carta members came at him in full force, while others stood back and launched ranged attacks. Quickly, he held out both hands and cast a sacrificial spell on the offensive parties. As they watched in horror, their very blood was pulled out of his own bodies and their vitality reinforced him. Their lifeless forms fell to the floor and the Carta members behind him screamed at the sight of it. He turned around and faced them, casting again and hemorrhaging their insides, corrupting their blood. While they were writhing on the ground in agony, dying slowly, he turned his attention to the more ranged Carta, lifting his hand to his temple and summoning a wave of telekinetic burst, pulling them toward him. As they fell to the floor, he entrapped them in a secondary wave of force, rendering them unable to move. After they were lifeless, with a flourish, he cast consuming entropic energy and harnessed whatever residual vitality was left in them and directed it at the remaining Carta members. Reaching into the depths of his own ability, he pulled fire from the Fade and its chaotic, destructive bursts overtook the remaining few. As they caught fire, they screamed. He paused and looked over the flailing bodies as they burned and turned his attention to Dougal, unable to move in fear. 

“As I said,” he approached the frightened dwarf and shrugged, “I like to indulge.” 

The man was cornered now and Malcolm cocked his head and observed his shaking with amusement. The mage smiled and lifted a hand, his fingers rigid and pointed toward Dougal. The dwarf cried out and he pulled his hand back and a force inside him dispersed the blood in his veins outwardly, passing through his skin and lingering in the air like a heavy crimson cloud. His pallid, sickly corpse fell on the floor. Malcolm pulled the linen strip back out of his pocket, knelt down by the body and wrapped the linen around his bleeding palm. “I hope it was as good for me as it was for you,” he purred with a quick pat on Dougal's dead body. He stood.

With that, he turned and walked away from the scene. It was a massacre, the street was coated with the red glisten of blood and bodies littered the ground. He stepped over the corpses without so much as an acknowledgment, a contented satisfaction on his face. It was basking in the afterglow of a good fuck, warm and content and filled wtih pleasurable satisfaction. Deliverance. Emancipation. _Freedom_. Malcolm looked up at the sky in Lowtown, wandering aimlessly through the dark. The black sky was littered with stars and stained with the light of fires in the city. The smoke was colored gold and he could look through it like stained glass. It was beautiful in all its ruination. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes. 

Release.   
  



End file.
